Ex-Alaska Reps Kott, Kohring released from jail

Former state Reps. Vic Kohring and Pete Kott were back in Anchorage on Thursday night after being released from prison, reuniting with family and friends at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

Former state Reps. Vic Kohring and Pete Kott were back in Anchorage on Thursday night after being released from prison, reuniting with family and friends at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

Reached in a friend's car as they headed north to his family's home in Wasilla, Kohring joked:

"This is Vic 'Jailbird' Kohring."

Kohring said he and Kott sat next to each other on the plane trip from Oregon.

"When we touched down at the airport there, we looked at each other and we clasped our hands together in joy that we were finally home after this awful ordeal," Kohring said.

Kohring, sporting hair long enough for a ponytail he grew to protest his targeting by federal corruption fighters, and Kott were released under extraordinary orders issued Wednesday and Thursday by courts in San Francisco and Anchorage. He said he might cut his hair soon.

Kohring left prison in Taft, Calif., earlier Thursday with a Greyhound bus ticket to Oregon in his hand, his lawyer said. He had been in prison about a year.

After Kohring climbed down from the bus at Sheridan, in Oregon, officials gave him a ride to Portland International Airport and handed him a plane ticket to Anchorage, according to his Seattle attorney, John Henry Browne.